


Getting There

by Damien_Reid



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy days, Angst, Family, Fluff, Handporn, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Spoilers, Suicidal Themes, mostly canon compliant, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damien_Reid/pseuds/Damien_Reid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slightly off-canon story about how James T. Kirk thinks he has a plan, exasperates Bones, and learns to be loved (and Spock FEELS THINGS).</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where We Begin Sort Of In The Middle

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely follows reboot canon. Except not really…
> 
> Tarsus IV still happens  
> Q is still that much of a tosser  
> George dies on the Kelvin  
> Sam is in here a little  
> Vulcan has not been black holed out of existence (no Spock!Prime or Nero)  
> Spock’s blood is green, his heart is in his abdomen, and his hands are open for molestation (and he’s a touch telepath)  
> Tribbles!  
> The replicator still can’t produce anything of higher quality than salted ketchup  
> I’m not even attempting Scotty’s or Chekov’s accents  
> Might throw some STID elements in here later (though personally, I think Khan is just a Sherlock with no John to love. Alias JOHN Harrison? Sounds like a coincidental tribute.)  
> I ship Chekov/Sulu even if it is cradle-robbing
> 
> I think Kirk acts a little like Owen/Jack in this and Spock is sort of like an even more reserved Ianto (less porn, innuendo, and pining).  
> I almost threw the Cardassians (Kardashians) in here just for shits and giggles :)

He is seven years old when his mother dies and almost young enough to believe it’s just a bad joke. But he sees the blue of her lips and feels the chill of her skin and knows better. Pike’s face says it all really— a mix of grief and pity, anger and guilt.

Or maybe he’s projecting.

Everyone whispers their condolences and skirts around him as though he might break. Even Sam can’t seem to bear looking at him.  He almost tells them all: it’s too late, he’s already broken…He almost follows his mother down the rabbit hole. Instead, Pike informally adopts him and the black of space becomes his home. It always threatens to swallow him whole.

 

James is twelve years old when he looks at Pike and suddenly all Pike can see is _George_. James Tiberius Kirk is his father in every way shape and form and Pike decides it’s time he goes back to Earth. He knocks on James’ door and walks inside. James’ eyes, impossibly, say he already knows what Pike is here for. Like he has some instinct and he just knows. The same way George looked at him, one last time as he beamed off the ship, like somehow he just knew.

Three months later James takes up his studies at a boarding school in San Antonio, which is as close as Pike can get him to Iowa and Sam without using excessive force.

James spends the first year practicing his smile, pretending like his last name is Pike, and George and Winona never existed. It’s a little strange and at first it _hurts_ , but after a while he masters it and becomes numb. It’s easier this way, than having to explain and thank them for their sympathy.

It takes three more years for James to graduate and one more (though he spends it on Tarsus IV and it feels like a century) for him to decide to join the Starfleet academy. **Jim** spends two-and-a-half years training there, full speed ahead, under Pike’s name, before someone mentions how much he looks like a commander that used to go there. Some guy called Kurt or Kirk or something and is James related somehow? Jim swallows back bile and shakes his head ‘no’.

The next day he disappears without warning and they never see him again.

He writes Pike just once to say he’s travelling and every once in a while Pike receives a random postcard. No message, just a letter K scrawled messily in the bottom right corner. It isn’t much but, for eight years, it’s enough.

 

At forty-eight Pike considers retirement.

 

One day he wakes up to the ping of a new message on his PADD. It’s no more than a date, a time, and a set of coordinates but he gets it. Somehow Pike _knows_.

Jim is ready to come home.

Pike makes a few calls and takes command of the Federation’s newest starship: The U.S.S. Enterprise. It’s gorgeous and sleek and armed with a young and capable crew. He makes a few more calls and twists a few arms and it’s decided that he will retire and his relief will be James Tiberius Kirk— whose father died in service to the Federation and who showed great promise during his attendance at the academy. He is only twenty-eight and will need six more months of training but, Pike has called in a few favours. The Enterprise is his if he wants it.

Acquiring Kirk is the Enterprise’s first mission, but Pike disguises it as a routine survey of the Federation’s less amiable territories. Pike will be Kirk’s training officer and at the end of six months Kirk will return to the Academy, briefly, to take his qualifications; after which, he will be named acting captain.

This is the plan and our story is just about to begin.


	2. Here Comes Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim in trouble? Jim IS trouble.

James Kirk is— a tad ironically— afraid of heights. He really is, and it isn’t because he’s afraid to fall. It’s because it would be too easy to jump.

When he was younger, living on Earth, Pike used to visit him during holiday breaks. Sometimes they would just spend the vacation relaxing in the city around the school, but other times they would go on roadtrips. The first trip Pike took him on was to a little middle-of-nowhere Hick-town in Iowa. It was the town his mother was from, the place where his parents had lived when they weren’t on deployment, and the place where they’d hoped to raise him and Sam when James got older.

It was the place where she kept him for seven years and it was the place where she died.

In this town was a quarry, a great gaping wound on the planet’s surface. Its depth was unfathomable as James stood at the edge, looking in, looking down. He couldn’t see the bottom but he could imagine it, vividly, as if he were truly there. He could imagine falling into it, could picture the ground hurtling towards him, ready to swallow him whole.

He could imagine jumping so clearly that, for a moment, he thought he had.

It was the same as being in space, he mused— the same as standing at the window of a starship, peering out into an endless darkness, unfathomable, but clear enough that he could imagine reaching the end of it. He could see the glass shattering outwards, the emptiness sucking him out. He could imagine a space beyond space where nothing existed.

Or maybe his parents were there, on the other side. He could just stop breathing, just push the release on the airlock and go drifting into their arms.

Would they be relieved to see him? Would his mother apologize and then scold him for always causing trouble? Would his father laugh and joke that boys would be boys? Would they miss him like he missed them?

He snapped back to the sound of Pike’s voice. They needed to get going; Pike would be shipping out soon.

James looked down at his own feet, just one step away from the canyon’s edge. His heart beat out a steady rhythm, untroubled; his hands were perfectly still; his breathing was even: he felt numb. He would’ve jumped and it would’ve been easy, simple.

He would’ve plummeted to his death perfectly calm.

The thought didn’t even scare him.

His lack of fear scared him.

He tried to imagine regretting it and couldn’t. He pictured Pike’s face, devastated and guilt ridden, and tried to feel sorry. He couldn’t.

He only felt numb.

He was hollow and it scared him. He only wondered why he hadn’t jumped.

Pike called for him once more and he followed. From that point on, James Kirk was afraid of heights.

 

Jim pulls out his PADD and laughs, hacking his way into the transmatt system. Pike’s brought him the newest, fanciest starship the Federation has to offer.

There’s a loud thud beyond the door of the storage closet he’s hiding in.

He really hopes Pike’s also brought him a gun.


	3. Love at First Sight...Or Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spock and Jim's first encounter

First Officer Spock hovers quietly behind Captain Pike, wondering why it is they’re standing around watching the transporter pad.

They’re parked in semi-hostile territory, anchored to an asteroid to avoid detection, and the Captain has offered no explanation for the sudden detour. They’re meant to be on the other side of the neutral zone, monitoring potential Klingon threat levels— a mission of the greatest importance— and Spock fails to see the logic behind the Captain’s actions.

He wonders, also, why their objective would require the presence of Dr. McCoy. He deduces easily that they must be waiting for someone, possibly someone injured, but if that’s the case why would they not beam down to assist this person or persons? Why would the Captain not be in communication with them? It is illogical.

“Commander Spock.” The Captain calls suddenly.

“Yes, Sir?” He answers, carefully mild.

“Give me the time, terran standard.” The Captain orders.

“1535, Sir.” He responds. So they are waiting for someone.

“Good. Dr. McCoy.” Captain Pike says, turning to eye the man in question.

“Sir?” McCoy answers, clearly no better informed than anyone else.

“I’d have the dermal regenerator ready.” Pike smiles fondly.

“Aye, Sir.” The doctor replies, pulling it from his case sceptically.

“Ensign Nellis.” The Captain speaks, switching his attention to a generic looking brunette, one among the youngest on the ship.

“Sir?” He answers dutifully.

“I assume you have a phaser.” The Captain prompts.

“Yes, Sir. Always.” The ensign affirms.

“Good. Hand it to Commander Spock.” The Captain orders.

“Sir?” The ensign startles but does as he’s told, albeit uncertainly.

“Captain, excuse me, but I have no need of a firearm.” Spock informs him.

“It’s not for you, Commander. It’s for our guest.” The Captain breathes with a sigh.

“Sir, this guest…it isn’t—? “ McCoy begins but he’s cut off by the squeal of the transmatt. The usually white light pops and fizzles green and when the smoke clears there’s a human male bleeding across the stark grey tiles.

“Jim!” McCoy shouts, running to catch him as he stumbles off the platform.

“Hey there, Bones. Long time no see.” The blonde laughs, swaying dangerously.

“You’re bleeding!” McCoy barks, shaking him roughly.

“Am I? Hey, Pike.” He greets casually. Then to Spock:

“Is that a phaser? Can I borrow it?” He asks, pitching forwards out of McCoy’s grasp.

“Captain?” Spock inquires, one eyebrow twitching upwards infinitesimally. The Captain only nods in reply, still smiling.

The stranger grins at him, one eye shut, blood streaming over it. Even like this, he has a luminescence about him: he burns. Spock hands over the phaser.

“Thanks.” The man replies as McCoy fusses over him, repairing the gash over his brow. Once that’s sussed he pushes McCoy’s hands away and steps back onto the transporter.

“Be right back.” He calls, evaporating in another flash of emerald.

 

For a second the room is entirely silent and no one moves.

And then Captain Pike addresses McCoy, business as usual, and says:

“When you’re done with him, tell him to change and report to the bridge. His clothes are already in your office.” And then he walks away like it isn’t strange at all.

“Aye, Captain.” McCoy confirms, a beat too late, to the empty space where the captain used to be. Spock hesitates for a moment and follows him out.

 

McCoy can’t help scowling petulantly as Jim reappears, staggering into his waiting arms with a laugh.

“Honey, I’m home.” Jim sing-songs, unreasonably irritating as usual.

“Dumbass.” Bones grumbles, dragging his friend to the Medbay like a husband returned from a bender.

Some things never change.


	4. Family Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little backstory for Jim and his favourite doctor

Leonard McCoy was twenty-five when his wife left him and twenty-six when he met James T. Kirk (though he was James Pike, back then). They weren’t exactly mates, but they did have a mutual disrespect for each other and they were roommates and classmates and drinking buddies— so, allies by default.

Bones (as Jim was prone to calling him) was a naturally gruff and unsociable creature made steadily worse by an abrupt change in relationship status. It wasn’t that he hated people in general; he was just a bit disinclined to be kind to them and had a slight tendency to snap (slight tendency meaning overwhelming compulsion). For instance: Jim had a ‘slight tendency’ to be recklessly insubordinate, which usually led to an awe-inspiring multitude of injuries— a good thing, too— since Bones was jonesing to be a doctor. In this way, at least, the two were a perfect match.

After three weeks of fragile tolerance and eight months of reluctant camaraderie, Bones and Jim do eventually find themselves toeing the line of amity. It takes another month plus a drunken bar fight for them to accept their friendship. It isn’t until Bones talks about the daughter he’ll probably never see again and Jim talks about the parents he’ll _definitely_ never see again, that they become brothers. The shared nakedness and awkward cuddles don’t happen until they discover opium in their third year (and no, they do not _actually_ have sex…they just think they did).

After Bones returns to their dorm one night to find every trace of Jim vanished, he vows never to forgive the little git. He does forgive him, of course, but it takes more drinking than is strictly advisable (as he’s an actual doctor, the amount scares him a little) and a lot of poorly kept alternative medicines from all the exotic places Jim goes. Bones seriously wonders how half of the shipments even manage to _find_ him, let alone clear customs.

Jim also smuggles him bourbon or whisky on occasion and he finds himself grudgingly placated.

 

Jim looks down at himself, dressed in Federation issue golds, and snorts a little. He knows exactly who they belonged to and he’s perfectly aware of the stunning resemblance. He’s heard it enough.

He lets out a small sigh and sucks it in with a smile. Bones watches him do it but doesn’t comment.

Kirk is grateful. He punches Bones in the arm on his way out. Bones vows to spike him with an extra hypo the next time he’s injured.

Ah, the beauty of friendship.


	5. Exposition, really...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meh.

Jim’s steps onto the bridge are neither measured nor slow. He is confident and charming with practice, with ease. He smiles and it’s almost natural, just enough to fool the spectators.

Pike isn’t a spectator and he saw James at the quarry that day. Spock didn’t, and naturally he makes some assumptions.

 

The way Kirk does a casual sweep of the room, addresses the Captain without title, makes eyes at anyone and everyone who passes him: all these things brand him as a reprobate— a feckless, disrespectful child. Though he may be— in some ways, to some lifeforms— aesthetically pleasing.

Pike speaks promptly and only half-amused.

“I'm arresting you for suspicious activity, aggravated assault, and trespassing in a restricted area. Sentence: six months working detention. You'll be staying on this ship for the duration. You may not leave without an escort of either: me, Commander Spock or someone I have assigned. You will assist with miscellaneous tasks and assignments and be given crew's quarters and accommodations. Any arguments? "  
Jim just snorts, aware of the game and its terms (also, Pike’s spew kind of sounds like an ASBO).

"No, Sir." He answers with mock conviction. Pike barely represses his own snort.

"At the beginning of each work day you will report to Commander Spock for a list of duties. When you have completed those duties you will report to me and I will dismiss you, after which, you are free to do as you please. So long as you stay _onboard_." Pike gives him another questioning look and a soft smirk.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now get off my bridge before you break something."

"Kay. And, Sir?" Jim answers cheery and honey sweet. This time Pike does snort.

"What is it, Kid?" Jim ducks his head, cheeks red with youth and gaze sincere through his lashes.

“Thanks.” Pike only smiles and turns back around in his chair, dismissing Kirk with an offhanded wave.

Kirk takes it as it is and makes a beeline for one of the only two places on the cruiser he’s acquainted with: Medical.

Kirk harasses Bones until the good doctor unapologetically pawns him off on a passing red-shirt (who Jim promptly dubs ‘cupcake’). Cupcake shows him around the ship, very nearly taking a swing at him and ‘accidently’ elbowing him in the ribs more than once. Jim quickly learns every corner of the beautiful new Enterprise. Six months, just 180 standard days, until he becomes the second captain Kirk to be ordained in Federation.

He can’t wait.

Pike calls him up to the main mess hall for dinner and, if it wasn’t already apparent, he’s marked as the captain’s favourite and everyone does their best to accommodate him.


	6. Take A Closer Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not long now before they're knitting each other friendship jumpers, eh?  
> Or not.

Kirk easily charms everyone he passes, making fast friends with: Chapel, Scotty, Keenser, Gaila, and Chekov. Even Uhura (constantly rebuffing him but, happy to engage in witty banter) and Sulu (always a challenge and a cheeky slight with him) at least have a mutual respect and regard for him— he counts them among his best mates and knows they do the same.

After two months of mischief and mishaps Kirk has well proven his worth as part of the crew; there isn’t a single facet of the Enterprise or its personnel that he isn’t absolutely smitten with. There are, however, two people who Kirk is fully aware are none too keen on his presence aboard the starship (but, who gives a flying fuck what Cupcake thinks? No one.)

 

“What is it about me, specifically, that you don’t like?” Kirk asks Spock one day, apropos of nothing. The Vulcan doesn’t startle, though he had thought the turbolift unoccupied when he boarded.

“I find your atypical lack of propensity for self-preservation illogical and disconcerting. You are…abnormal.” Spock replies, _not_ shifting uncomfortably. Kirk straightens from where he was leaning against the wall, hidden from view, and tilts his head endearingly.

The lift doors ding open.

“Am I?” He smiles, not really asking and not waiting for a reply before walking away. Spock stares at his back and almost frowns.

He misses his stop and ends up on the lower decks. Uhura voices her concern. Spock feigns aural incompetence.

 

 

(Kirk’s POV)

He’s running— constantly running— and it feels like he’s going in circles. There are mounds of red and black and tan splashed across the narrow passageways and he hurries past, refusing to really look. He leaps over them, pivots on the turns, makes sure not to touch the walls, rights himself before his hands connect with the mess on the floor. He doesn’t really know where he’s going, has no sense of direction as the laminate tile spins beneath him. He keeps running and somehow he reaches the exit.

He freezes. There’s a sheer drop below him and somehow he knew it would come to this, knew that even if he got out, there was never anywhere to go.

He can’t go back into the maze— won’t go back. For a while he just stays, just breathes and stares down into the emptiness.

Before he even has a chance to register it, he’s falling.

It’s light and dark at the same time and it swallows him whole.

He gives in to it.

He stops breathing.

He’s awake.

 

He stares at his plain white ceiling for a long, long time. It’s not like it was his first nightmare and he’s used to them already. They’re a part of his life, like his scars and his ghosts, and they mean nothing now— just cold sheets and an empty bed.

They’re only bad dreams, no more genuine than his smiles.

He inhales and exhales, inhales and exhales— hollow. And goes back to sleep, back to the darkness.

 

It isn’t so much that Spock notices really, he just… _notices_. Ya’know?

It’s something in the way Kirk’s eyes are a flick more grey than blue, a little duller than normal, and it means something.

— Not that Spock cares. It’s merely an observation.

“So, what’re my chores for today, Boss?” Kirk grins easily, but Spock is starting to see the cracks. He sends Kirk to engineering for the next few shifts. It isn't kindness exactly...

But it really sort of is, just a bit.

 

After three more months, Pike stands on the bridge and opens a shipwide comm. He officially announces his plans for retirement, Kirk’s real purpose aboard the ship, and the fact that the Enterprise was chosen specifically for his promotion. He is pleasantly unsurprised to find that the majority of the ship has already deduced just that. He’s confident now that he’s leaving Kirk in capable hands and vice-versa. He only barely suppresses his proud grin and by the time they make it back to the academy he’s lost his penchant for self-restraint.

At the relief assembly Pike damn near cries, and he definitely pulls his idiot god-son in for a rib-crushing bearhug. Everyone on his crew says their quiet goodbye’s, good luck’s, and congratulation’s.

Before long he’s happily retired in a San Francisco townhouse with his lovely wife Number One and monthly comms from Kirk and from McCoy _about_ Kirk. There are worse ways to end a life’s adventure, he thinks, and once in a while he steps in to help train new recruits at the academy.

He even gets in touch with Sam (two kids and a wife of his own) and sometimes they spend holidays together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually did have that dream, funny enough. It was right in the middle of end-of-quarter exams...  
> but it's all okay now :)
> 
>  
> 
> I'll admit, I was totally rocking out to the song Roxanne by the Police while writing this.


	7. Bitter Sweets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: wounded animals have a tendency to lash out when approached. Proceed with caution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend the song Head On by ManMan

A few months after his promotion and a particularly tricky bout of negotiations with the Q (of all people! Bloody wankers), James stands at a window and thinks.

He thinks about the slowly burgeoning affection he could see through Spock’s transparent eyes (who does he think he’s fooling?).

He thinks about a planet called Tarsus IV and the girl there who’d looked at him the way Spock sometimes does.

He thinks about endless possibilities and having power enough to do anything, power enough to call back the dead, power like the Q.

 

He doesn’t know what love feels like, has never had an example to draw from. He knows grudging fondness and concern from Pike and Bones (and sometimes maybe Sam, just a little little bit), knows lust from countless one night stands, knows admiration from peers and old schoolmates, knows obligation from put-upon chaperones, but he doesn’t know _love_. Isn’t sure he’d recognize it if it walked up and slapped him in the face.

He knows he’s damaged, can see it every time he looks in the mirror or feels someone’s eyes linger on him. He knows.

He knows he was doomed since the day his father died (his very own birthday). He knows how fucked he was growing up (a shadow in his mother’s eyes). He knows how it broke him (her decline and eventual suicide). He knows.

He understands his father’s courage and his cowardice (his inability to watch others lose their lives and his willingness to throw away his own, to leave his wife and sons behind). He understands his mother’s selfless obligation to stay behind and care for him and her selfish inability to stay, to even look at him.

He hates them both for leaving and knows that isn’t fair, knows their sacrifice cost them as much as it did him.

Winona Kirk lost a husband. George Kirk lost everything.

James Kirk never had a prayer.

And he’s long accepted that maybe that’s all just as well.

 

He also thinks that Spock is probably going to try to change that soon, damn Vulcan.

 

 

(Spock POV)

Kirk is standing at the window, staring at nothing, and it’s not exactly unusual, it’s just…he’s very quiet, more than a mere lack of sound, he’s completely **silent**. He’s calm and still and utterly unpronounced— all things he isn’t, not ever.

Spock doesn’t know how he knows but somehow he does. Kirk is about to jump— is falling already…and isn’t bothering to fight it. He looks at peace, like dying is the logical conclusion.

“Captain.” He calls and gets no answer. He tries again, nothing.

“Jim!” He shouts, a little more desperate and Kirk turns. The way Kirk looks at him…

Raw, is the most apt descriptor.

And suddenly Spock can _see_ the damage, the cracks now gaping rifts, reality collapsing on Kirk’s shoulders. For a deadly second Spock thinks Kirk might go running or find some miracle way to release the airlock…and then he just _smiles_ and Spock can’t breathe.

Kirk looks like he’s weeping and raging and going to pieces: he’s wrecked.

Spock has the notion that he should close his eyes or turn away, that this isn’t something he’s allowed to see, that any man is permitted to bear witness to. But more than the urge to turn away, he wants to touch, wants to get his hands on Kirk and shake him and hear what he’s thinking.

“Hey.” Kirk says it like nothing’s wrong and Spock halts, unaware until that moment that he’d been moving at all.

“Captain…” The word slips out of its own volition, he’s startled to find it’s a whisper.

“Do you need something?” Kirk asks, and he’s so damn _normal_ Spock understands why he didn’t notice before.

“…No, Captain. Nothing.” He answers, because Kirk is suddenly Kirk again and he’s moved away from the window. Whatever he had been wanting to say, he’s lost his chance.

 

 

Genuine concern. It flickered there, in Spock’s eyes, like a timid flame and James burned with it. He wanted to hold it and a cold part of him wants to crush it, toss it aside and ask: ‘Why now? Why _now_?’ Because for twenty-eight years he’s had nothing. So, he decides, sod it.

He’ll do his damndest as a captain and as his father’s son, but he’s going to make a game out of Spock.

He’s fit and he knows a little about seduction and anatomy. He’ll make Spock lose that careful Vulcan control, make him admit his misguided love and admiration, and then he’ll throw it back in his face.

That’s the plan anyway.

But, things tend not to go to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Human psychology is strange at best...  
> I promise it'll be much clearer when Bones explains it (what with being a medical professional and that).


End file.
